Google released the beta of new HTML5 animation utility that combines both coding and graphics. No surprise, front and center on its promotional content is a faux advertisement, as Google looks for additional ways to increase its revenue stream.

The last feature built-in ad editor mentioned on the webpage  is the first thing on the “Create New” screen.

Its a free download, and puts Google in the HTML5 animation race along with Hype 2 for OS X, Apple iAd Producer and Adobe Edge Animate. The death of flash has lead to some exciting alternatives, (albeit ad centric) 

The Myth of the Rockstar Programmer is just that, a myth. It’s an unfortunate myth for a number of reasons.

• It sets an unreasonable expectation for regular folks.
• Calling out rockstars demotivates the team.
• Telling someone they are a rockstar may cause them to actually believe it.

Reality is a normal distribution curve. Lots of good average senior developers, some amazing outliers and some

junior folks with potential. (and some folks that suck. 

- “The Myth of the Rockstar Programmer" Scott Hanselman, hanselman.com

Can we lump the term Rockstar Programmers with the ”Brogrammer“ movement? 

About time I install iOS 7 on something… my iPad 2. 

My iPhone 5 is jailbroken, and I’m willing to play the waiting game for iOS 7 as I’m tied to iFile, MyWi, 3G Unrestrictor and 5 icon dock. 

I’m curious how it’ll perform on the only non-retina display device supported, sans the iPad Mini (The iPad Mini has a higher pixel density 163 PPI vs 132 PPI. Ironically, the iPhone models from the original to the 3GS all had 164 PPI).

With such a heavy concentration on Typography and the new Textkit rendering engine, the lacking resolution on the iPad 2/iPad Mini I imagine won’t have quite the impact as it does on the iPad 3+/ iPhone 4+.

Here’s a true Javascript gem, that doesn’t require JQuery. It weights in at 8k minified and only takes a few lines of CSS, there’s plenty of styles to pick from and its stupidly easily to implement (I’ve already stuck it on my portfolio redesign).  

Just stick it as the first script in your head file and the CSS right below it and without any effort, you know have a loader bar. 

For live demos go to the github page to nab it :D

Remember, its all about intent. You probably won’t need/want this on a blog, but for a media rich site, it helps communicate the page progress.

I was looking over parallex like effects and found this gem…

Quick and dirty gif I made to show the effect, go to the website to see it action.

One of the more interesting, Scroll Orama, scrolling plugins has a new version, Super Scroll Orama. Its portfolio has an impressive, including Ikea, Target and Kenmore.

Top 10 DTrace scripts for Mac OS X

Since version 10.5 “Leopard”, Mac OS X has had DTrace, a tool used for performance analysis and troubleshooting. It provides data for Apple’s Instruments tool, as well as a collection of command line tools that are implemented as DTrace scripts. I’m familiar with the latter as I wrote the originals for theDTraceToolkit, which Apple then customized and enhanced for Mac OS X where they are shipped by default (great!). I use them regularly to answer this question:

why is my MacBook slow?

I work in an office where everyone has MacBook Pros, and “why is my MacBook slow?” is a common question. Applications can become slow or unresponsive while waiting for CPU work, memory requests or disk I/O to complete.

Standard performance analysis tools like Activity Monitor and top(1) (and any third-party tools based on the same foundation) can’t tell you some key information about activity on your system, such as how much CPU consumption is caused by short-lived processes, or which processes are causing disk I/O. DTrace, however, can see (just about) everything.

Source: Brendan’s blog

DTrace is a wonderful CLI utility for OS X that lets you get your geek on. There’s no way I’m going to try and improve on the blog post on Brendan’s Blog. 

This probably geekier than most OS X users are comfortable, but if you’re familiar with Bash, you shouldn’t have too many troubles with it.

Smoothmouse.com is an exercise in how NOT to sell your product, there’s almost zero information on what SmoothMouse is. What smoothmouse does is remove a latency bug that’s existed from 10.4 - 10.8.x. It is not a mouse accelerator or anything to do with altering your cursor vectors.

Visiting the smoothmouse.net forums has the full story.

Fact: the on-screen pointer lags behind the mouse (or trackpad) in OS X more than in other operating systems, such as Windows or Ubuntu Linux.

To sum up:

• The problem has been confirmed by an Apple engineer (thanks to him for that) in an email correspondence with me. He has also mentioned that they were working on a solution.
• The problem has existed at least since OS X 10.4 “Tiger”. The current version of OS X (10.8 “Mountain Lion”) still exhibits the problem.
• Many people confuse lag with acceleration, this is what my blog post was about.

Solutions:

• SmoothMouse.
• Running Mac as a Synergy client with a mouse connected to another computer running Synergy server.
• Using Wacom tablet instead of a mouse.

Source: http://smoothmouse.net/forum/topic/34-pointer-lag

There’s even a quote from id software legend John Caramack concerning OS X’s mouse lag. I used to think it was the latency was induced by the LCDs I used but its always been ever present. 

iBeacon are part of iOS 7, think RFID like devices.

…iBeacons is to help you find things — or, rather, to help your iOS device to find itself. iBeacons is the general name for a set of additions to the CoreLocation framework that developers can use when designing apps: it isn’t a new piece of hardware, nor a new app, but a capability. Apps can use iBeacons to answer the question “Where am I?” not in terms of a location on a map, like GPS does, but in terms of where the device is relative to another device. Specifically, where it is relative - Source: Tidbits.com

 iBeacons seem nebulous until you read the following…

One company that is hard at work making their own brand of iBeacon sensor is estimote. From their web site:

Simply stick our tiny sensors in any physical place — such as your retail store — and your app users will benefit from personalized micro-location based notifications and actions when they walk in to your venue or interact with your products. - loopinsight.com

“Apple iOS 7 surprises as first with new multipath TCP connections”

Network World - Apple’s iOS 7 is the first large-scale use of a newly-minted Internet protocol, called multipath TCP. It lets computers send and receive data across different network paths and interfaces at the same time, such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi and 3G  

Source: Network World

Before you ask why you’d even need that:

Researchers have been working for years on creating “disruption tolerant” networks, which can automatically work around failures, sometimes multiple failures, and adapt to changing network conditions

Source: Network World

Its worth reading the whole article, multipath TCP should be transparent to the end user and boon to developers and user experience without having to lift a finger.

Quartz is even more pumped about it than NetworkWorld with an article titled Apple’s iOS 7 includes a surprise: a ticket to the next generation of the internet.

iOS 7 audio problems: musicians advised not to upgrade yet “iOS 7 audio is not ready,” says Audiobus developer

Thanks to the long-awaited arrival of Inter App Audio, many of us had been hoping for better integration between music making apps in iOS 7, but with the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system now rolling out, the focus has switched to problems that it’s having with audio performance.

Source: MusicRadar.com

While not good, this could be more serious if its not addressed before the release of iOS 7 for the iPad. The iPhone doesn’t support USB Dock adapter with CoreMidi, which means that the iPhone and iPod Touch require special interfaces.

Pair-Lock Your iOS 7 Device with Apple’s Configurator

As it turns out, the same mechanism that provides your iOS 7 device with a potential back door can also be used to help secure your device should it ever fall into the wrong hands. This article is a brief how-to on using Apple’s Configurator utility to lock your device down so that no other devices can pair with it, even if you leave your device unlocked, or are coerced into unlocking it yourself with a passcode or a fingerprint. By pair-locking your device, you’re effectively disabling every logical forensics tool on the market by preventing it from talking to your iOS device, at least without first being able to undo this lock with pairing records from your desktop machine. This is a great technique for protecting your device from nosy coworkers, or cops in some states that have started grabbing your call history at traffic stops. 

Source: zdziarski.com

Bluetooh, Bluetooth and bluetooth

iOS 7 has a lot more expansive Bluetooth support, both Mavericks and iOS are getting a healthy dose of bluetooth support.

In a post at the official Bluetooth blog, chief marketing officer Suke Jawanda outlines some of these changes. First, he confirms that Bluetooth Smart is a big part of AirDrop, an iOS 7 feature that lets nearby users quickly exchange photos and documents. With the new operating systems, Bluetooth hardware will also gain access to Apple Notification Center Services (ANCS), making the task of pushing notifications to smartwatches and other wearables far more seamless for developers. Rather than having to come up with clever workarounds — as Pebble had to do with iOS 6 — the expanded support ideally means users shouldn’t have to worry about fussing with settings to get things functioning properly. 

Source: TheVerge.com

Apple showed off its very strong developer commitment by adding more to the core Bluetooth APIs. It was amazing to see the native support of more GATT profiles (including HID and ANS), the growing ecosystem of devices and verticals Apple is looking at, and the sheer market potential Apple sees in the Bluetooth appcessory space.

One of the coolest things I saw was the addition of Bluetooth support to the Application State Preservation and Restoration APIs. Let’s say you have a device utilizing an app on your phone or tablet. The user interacts with the app to control the device, but then moves to another task. Soon, there are several apps open, the system looks to reclaim some resources, and unloads your app from memory. By implementing the State Preservation and Restoration APIs for Bluetooth, iOS7 will automatically remember the state the app was in when the system shut the app down. iOS7 then allows that state to be loaded back into memory (along with the app) when your device needs the app again. To me, this is the epitome of intelligent management. It allows developers to create seamless experiences for consumer interaction with appcessories without worrying about the state management plumbing code.

Source: Bluetooth.com

I can’t say I’m as versed with bluetooth tech as I should be (GATT profiles are new to me) but the biggest rumor is iOS 7 mouse support.

We’ve gotten a few questions from users through our web tickets about how to do this on Safari and Chrome on Mac so I’m adding those directions here for anyone else who comes across this post. 

To revert the settings in Chrome on Mac: 

1. Click the ‘hot dog’ button (formerly the wrench icon) and go to “Settings”
2. In Settings, go to the “On Startup” section; select “Open a specific page or set of pages”. Click on “Set Pages” and select an alternate or add a new page that you prefer to use instead of the Conduit option.
3. In Settings, go to the “Appearance” section; check the box for “Show Home Button”. Click the “Change” link, select “Open This Page” and write in the page you want to use as your home page.
4. In Settings, go to the “Search” section. Click “Manage Search engines…” Add or select a new default search engine, then remove the Conduit option.
5. In your search box go to chrome://extensions and remove the Conduit Search tool and DivX Browser Bar tool.
6. Close and reopen the browser to see the changes take effect.

To revert the settings in Safari: 

1. Go to Safari and select “Preferences”
2. Under the General section go to “Home Page”
3. Change the home page from the Conduit search option to something else (e.g.www.google.com)

In Firefox on Mac, you can change your Home Page by following these steps: 

1. In the “Firefox” menu, select “Preferences”
2. Under the General section, find the Home Page area.
3. Remove the current Home Page option and write in a new one, for example “http://www.google.com”
4. Close and Reopen the browser to see the changes take effect.

To change the New Tab page in Firefox on Mac: 

1. Open a new tab
2. Click the “Restore” button in the bottom left corner of the page.
3. Close and Reopen the browser to see the changes take effect.

To change the search engine for the search bar: 

1. Click on the menu next to the magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner of the browser window.
2. Select “Manage Search Engines”
3. Select a new search engine as your default, for example Google.
4. Remove the DivX Browser Bar/Conduit option from the list

To change the 404 error page: 

1. Go to the Firefox folder: open Finder and navigate to Applications and right click on firefox.app
2. Select MacOS, and delete the MACSearchTakeOver.js file
3. Go to the folder Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/CHOOSEActiveProfile. Note, USERNAME = your username. CHOOSEActiveProfile will be a unique name, for example “6y5m281v.default”
4. Delete the file called abstraction.js

Source: forums.divx.com/divx/topics/bing_search_page_appears_when_opening_a_new_tab_window_on_firefox_macos

Interestingly, as someone with an affinity for codecs, its been quite some time since I’ve thought about DIVX. Last night, I was updating my Flip4Mac codecs so I could use Camtasia (and checking my 3VIX codecs) but since the advent of .H264 and AAC, its hard to really think of using any other end-user codecs besides .H264 (and WebM for FireFox users).

DIVX is so irrelevant today that popular Sorenson Squeeze doesn’t even bother to output to it. It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve fallen to RealMedia’s RealPlayer shovelware tactics.

Ever heard of Native Client by Google? I didn’t either until Google’s latest announcement for Google+ photo editing tools

Tech crunch summerizes it as the following:

“This technology allows developers to execute native code in a sandbox in the browser. It can execute C and C++ code at native speeds and with the ability to, for example, render 2D and 3D graphics, run on multiple threads and access your computer’s memory directly. All of that gives it a massive speed bump over more traditional HTML5 apps (Native Client apps basically run at the same speed as they would in a desktop app, after all) and makes tools like the new Google+ photos editing features as fast as they are.

Native Client works in Chrome on Windows, Linux, Mac and Chrome OS, but other browser vendors are not supporting it. Mozilla, for example, is trying to get JavaScript to the point where it runs almost as fast as a native app (something they are getting very close to thanks to the asm.js project). Microsoft, on the other hand, is betting on hardware acceleration (and WebGL) in IE11 to make web apps run faster in its browser.

” - TechCrunch

While not entirely the same, Native Client sounds like ActiveX all over again, just with Cross Platform status. 

Seems like a round-about way to address the lack of native apps on Chrome OS.

Bootstrap is great. Its effectively now the 960 grid of 2012+. There’s no other way to really slice it, but its overkill for a lot of project and locks you into a lot of styling that you may not want or need.  There’s a lot of lightweight CSS frameworks. I’ve come increasingly to the conclusion that you should get into the habit of rolling your own.  

While I’ve seen some extreme criticism of frameworks such as “CSS frameworks, the killers of design trends”, my rationing is a little more practical and a little more selfish: I want control and I want to know the thought process of why each design decision was made. 

Here’s a quick compiled list of links for building your own CSS framework:

CSS Frameworks + CSS Reset: Design From Scratch - An intro to CSS frameworks by Smashing Magazine

Reset CSS - No need to reinvent the wheel, zero out your browser defaults.

Don’t Overthink - CSS grids - Make CSS grids smart

Defining breakpoints - A nice philosophy on defining breakpoints.

TypeChart - Easy to nab typography defaults if your project requires web safe fonts.

f an Android device (phone or tablet) has ever logged on to a particular Wi-Fi network, then Google probably knows the Wi-Fi password. Considering how many Android devices there are, it is likely that Google can access most Wi-Fi passwords worldwide. 

Recently IDC reported that 187 million Android phones were shipped in the second quarter of this year. That multiplies out to 748 million phones in 2013, a figure that does not include Android tablets. 

Many (probably most) of these Android phones and tablets are phoning home to Google, backing up Wi-Fi passwords along with other assorted settings. And, although they have never said so directly, it is obvious that Google can read the passwords. 

Sounds like a James Bond movie.  

Sounds like standard Google fair to me.  This is the same google that went rooting around for your wifi network.

Never thought I’d have warm-fuzzies for the Microsoft era.

Too many iOS apps are just rehashes of those same instagram effects, trite and tired, but there are some gems in a crowded landscape

Without any scientific methodology or reasoning and certainly no order, I present: “The 4 iOS camera apps worth paying money for”! Out of the two dozen+ iOS photography related apps I’ve bought, these are the 4 iPhone apps I keep coming back to.

SnappyCam

SnappyCam on an iPhone 5 can capture 20 FPS of 8 mp photos. Seems impossible right? Nope,  but it only took a scientific breakthrough. Outside of its annoying sound effects, its a must.

Links:

iTunes

Official Website

Kaleidomatic

Kaleidomatic tells all in the name,its a Kaleidoscope app for your iPhone that lets you use your camera to import photos or use your camera Kaleidoscope like effects. 

It sports an intuitive interface allow you to twist and drag the effects, and lets you export variants of your creations, including seamless images, perfect for repeating backgrounds.

It works wonders, see my iPhone lock screen, an interpretation of David Thorne’s seven legged spider.

Photo: Seven Legged Spider Lock Screen (Book Cover)

Links: 

iTunes

Official Site

Camera Noir

An app that only shoots black and white with 3 setting levels shouldn’t be this good… but it is. Its easy to get stunning photos.  Don’t take my word for it. Appleinsider, Uncrate, Cultofmac, iDownloadBlog, CanvasApp and DaringFIreball.

Photo: Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Links

iTunes

Official Website

ProHDR

Yes, your iPhone has built in HDR, so why would you pay for it? ProHDR offers control, allowing you to blend two separate captures and quite simply get better results than your iOS HDR. ProHDR even predates iOS’s HDR and continued to be maintained since, I’ve been using it years.

Quite simply, you can get captures that you cannot get using any other software.

Photo: Spencer’s Butte, Oregon

The app’s auto feature works pretty damn well, it require a steady hand (and not much movement), but it’ll auto detect the lightest area and the darkest area and adjust the shutter accordingly. After two snaps, you’re presented with the ability to adjust the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Warmth and Tint. The photo above illustrates how even extreme light differences, the ProHDR app performs admirably. 

Links

iTunes

Official Website

Honorable Mentions (You should buy these too)

Camera+ - The most capable of the iOS Photo App replacers, includes Touch Exposure & Focus, “Always On” flash, Digital Zoom, iCloud Support and of course, Instagram like effects. There’s 100s of apps competing but Camera+ is probably the best of ‘em.

Mextures - Lets you combine effects in chained layers. If Filters are what you’re after, look no further. Its probably the most flexible filter app on the market. More than worth buying.

OJ is a JavaScript library with the goal to make objects that create and live edit the web. So thisBulletList object creates itself and then lets you manipulate it:

OJ JS abstracts websites into objects that are controlled via JS. Its interesting, but at 11,000 lines of JS there’s a question of added complexity and reduced performance for uncertain benefit. That said, it gifts true MVC.